


it left a bee sting in their stead

by likewinning



Category: Batman (Comics), Batman - Fandom, DCU
Genre: Alternate Universe - Gangsters, Comment Fic, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-17
Updated: 2014-12-17
Packaged: 2018-03-09 06:09:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 276
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3239198
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/likewinning/pseuds/likewinning
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Waynes ran Gotham's criminal element until their deaths. Then their little boy grew up... Written for Comment Fic, prequel of sorts to <a href="http://archiveofourown.org/works/3239156">this</a>.</p>
            </blockquote>





	it left a bee sting in their stead

With his parents dead, everyone thought the Wayne legacy was over. Shot down outside a theater, the biggest crime family in Gotham taken out in a single hit – except the boy.

They let the boy live, figuring he would be too timid, too scared. Figuring at such a young age, the kid would be too naïve to know where his parents' money _really_ came from.

None of those other families, those cowards and _idiots_ , had any idea what was coming for them.

After their deaths, Bruce mourns. He changes from a happy child who likes the cinema and bedtime stories to a boy who reads on his own, speaks to almost no one but his butler. The other families talk, some of the _truly_ hypocritical ones still visit the manor. Offer condolences. _Support_.

Bruce kills the first one when he is fifteen, poison slipped into Falcone's wine. They say poison is a woman's weapon, but the hospital told him despite the order of the bullets, his mother died first. This first death is for her.

The rest are his to keep.

By the time he is twenty-five, everyone who doesn't work for him or _fear_ him is dead. He owns the cops, except for maybe Gordon – and he knows Gordon will never bring him in, that Gordon still sees him as the boy he found in a pool of his own parents' blood. And anyhow, he is too careful.

He is rich, and successful, and beneath all of that he is lonely. He has rebuilt his parents' empire out of bullets and bones, but he still doesn't have what anyone could call a family.

Not yet.


End file.
